BUHARINOMICS- The Economics of Confusion

Photo: Rtd. General Muhammadu Buhari, former Dictator and now President of Nigeria.

Photo Credit: Afolabi Sotunde / Reuters

Nigerians seem to be tired of crying about their economic woes; the more they complain, the worse the living conditions seem to become. It has not been a good tale for businesses as exchange rates for Naira would do nothing but plummet at every given time. Many workers go home at the end of the month with their salaries owed, as debts; neither in their bank accounts nor spent on the provision of their numerous needs. The prices of goods in the market have gone so high that, survival for the average Nigerian becomes a luxury even for the next moment.

Businesses are fast folding up and frustration is on the increase. The news headlines in Nigeria have taken after that which is obtainable in the West; many cases of suicide and psychiatric disorder. It is common in the present day Nigeria to hear of people who opted to take their own lives rather than face the economic condition that has proven a deadlock. Food has evaded the ambience of being a basic necessity; it has become an exclusive reserve of the rich because of the high costs of food items in the market. Diseases are on the increase and hospital bills cannot be paid. The needs of Nigerians are fast increasing by the day while their sources of income are stifled on daily basis. All thanks to the economic downturn in the country christened recession.

It has been the argument of the present administration in Nigeria to heave blames on the past administration in the country. It has not also excused the plummeting oil price in the international market. But the big question remains “what has been done in recent times to salvage the economic saga in the country?” It would be grossly unfair to dismiss the efforts of the Buhari-led administration to remedy the Nigerian economy. Without doubt, the Nigerian government has been trying, but there is need to ask another important question; “are these efforts directed in the right quarters? Are the efforts really yielding the desired results?” A deeper reflection would reveal an obvious instance of confusion and hence the idea of economics of confusion. “Who takes the blame?” and “Who has the Solutions?”

Commenting on the severe economic conditions in the country, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Dr. Olisa Agbakoba, has said Nigeria will continue to wallow in economic recession until 2020 except the Federal Government takes hold of the banking sector and exert more regulatory control, among other measures. He advised the Federal Government to return the Treasury Single Account to the commercial banks and create a new supervisory agency to monitor them, while the Central Bank of Nigeria should focus its attention on formulating monetary policies. In his words “Give Treasury Single Account back to the banks at single digit rates and supervise the banks; I recommend a lending base of 5 percent. Limit the CBN to monetary policy and take away banking supervision to new prudential regulatory authority and banking ethics to new financial conduct authority. If banks focus on lending and not trading, money will flood the system for productive value.”

Agbakoba maintained that, Nigeria’s economy had already slid further from recession into depression. He cited a case of a factor that is very crucial to economic planning; the Federal Government did not have what could be called an economic team at the moment. He argued, therefore, that one of the first steps that President Muhammadu Buhari should take to rescue the economy from recession was to set up an economic team comprising of experts or technocrats.

He, further, stressed that, the only way out of recession was for the government to pump money into the system by embarking on developmental projects rather than adopting austerity measures. In Agbakoba’s words “We must spend our way out of recession. When you go to the hospital and the doctor says you’re anaemic, only one thing is done – transfusion. So, how can the government present an austerity programme? The government must be clear as to what policy it wants to pursue. There is only one way out of recession and it is massive bouncing. You have to bounce the economy.

In a similar view, the senator representing Lagos-West Senatorial District, Senator Solomon Adeola, has called for urgent measures to tackle the current economic recession facing the country. Adeola, who is the Vice-Chairman, Senate Committee on Communications, said it was worrisome that government at all levels were not treating the issue of recession with the urgency it required “to ensure that its duration is not unduly prolonged with untold suffering and even deaths for majority of our people.”

Adeola, in a statement by his Media Adviser, Mr. Kayode Odunaro, stated that the recession was not peculiar to Nigeria. He said “The difference here is that not much is being done to assure the people that government is on top of the situation in terms of marshalling out implementable policies to address the plight of groups that are hardest hit by the continuing recession. Experience, in the past, shows that, one of the most reliable ways to tackle recession is to spend money on productive sector, as well as welfarist spending to put money in the pockets of the poor.”

However, the Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, has recently, dismissed insinuations by a former President of Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Olisa Agbakoba that Nigeria’s current economic recession will last until 2020. The Vice President while addressing reporters in Ede, Osun State, stated that the recession will not last long because the administration was putting in place measures that will resuscitate the economy.

President Muhammadu Buhari on the other hand has assured Nigerians that the current economic challenges in the country will soon be over. Buhari gave the assurance during the grand finale of the All Progressives Congress, APC, governorship rally that was held recently in Edo State.

There are good reasons to worry about the Nigerian economy, which has gone into what could be best described and depression. This is because economists estimate the cycle of recession at three years. If that is truly the case, the journey into further economic recession has just begun for Nigeria. If it is this way at this time, only time will tell the few Nigerians that will live as survivors to tell the tales.

Okechukwu Chukwuemeka (okeyemmy@gmail.com) is a freelance writer who publishes regularly in the “The Choice Flame Newspaper”, a bi-weekly publication of the Catholic Diocese of Enugu, Enugu State, Nigeria.

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